Runaway
by delsicle
Summary: Peeta needs to get out of town. Katniss is just along for the ride.


**_Peeta, 12: 17 AM_**

"God damn it, woman!"

"You son of a bitch! You fucking son of a bitch! You think—you think you can do this to me? You think you can get away with this?"

"Alright, you don't like what I do for you, you can get the fuck out! I'll wait for you to get back, it won't take long. I know your fucking type, you're all the same!"

I hear the front door slam, another screech of voices, and then the squeal of a car starting and then peeling away. I sigh, shaking my head.

It's typical weekday background noise, really, the sound of Snow and his flavor-of-the-week girlfriend slinging meaningless, uncreative insults at each other. Right now, he's found himself a twenty-something redhead to bicker with, Lavinia. She's nice enough. I don't hate her the way I hate most of them, I really feel sorry for her more than anything.

Too bad I probably won't ever see her again.

As the sound of Lav's car fades down the street, I turn my attention to my backpack. I shove a few pairs of extra socks in the dirt-stained toes of my sneakers, then set them in the bottom of the bag. A couple pairs of jeans and a few t-shirts get stacked over them, and then a hoodie goes on top. My sketchbook gets slipped in the back, the one personal possession I can't bear to leave here. I've already turned my phone off and left it on the floor of my closet. Won't need it where I'm going. Actually, it would be really fucking dumb if I did bring it. Stuff like that is too easy to track, and I need to become invisible.

There's another crash from the living room, a short six yards away from where I'm standing. I flinch out of instinct. The house isn't big and the walls are thin, so you can't hide from much here.

Luckily, I'm not hiding, I'm leaving.

After three years under this roof, I'm finally getting out.

Finally, I pick up the foul-smelling, balled-up black sock from its current place on the bed, unfold the top, and look inside to see the creased green rolls of paper tucked inside. I take a deep breath and shove the sock under my hoodie, watching it disappear into the bag. I feel my stomach twist just thinking about it. If I lose anything else in here, it's fine. It's replaceable. If I lose that money sock, I'm screwed.

I zip the bag up and throw the straps over my shoulders. I give myself a few extra seconds to take one last look around the room just to make sure I haven't left behind anything important, and then advance to the window.

I trace my fingers along the edges, press my palms against the dividing portion. I push up, expecting it to slide open smoothly.

Instead, my hands don't do anything. I shake the pane of the window, hearing it rattle, but there's no movement.

It's fucking stuck. And I didn't bother to check beforehand.

I try again, slap the glass in frustration, but it's stationary. Why the fuck didn't I check this out earlier? How the hell am I going to get out now?

Damn it, damn it, damn-

The sound of low, heavy footsteps echo down the hall, dangerously close to my door. I freeze, my hands frozen over the sticky, smudged glass. The door is locked and barricaded with my desk chair and a shit ton of textbooks. But if Snow wants that door down, he'll find a way, and I'm hoping I figure out my situation before he gets to that point.

 _Please keep walking. Please just keep walking and go back to your room. Please be drunk enough that you're just going to drop off into a coma and I can leave. Please_ -

The pounding echoes on my door, and not only have my pleas not come true, but I can't ignore the sound anymore.

"What the fuck is goin' on in there? What're you breaking?"

I turn, looking at the chair and the worthless cardboard- covered textbooks stacked against the door. They shake with each pound, just like my heart, and threaten to slip, just like my nerves.

 _Fuck._

There's another sharp pound, which makes the topmost book fall and hit the ground, opening up to reveal pages of trigonometry problems.

"I said what're you breaking, boy? You think you can break my shit? You think it's yours or something? It's your room but my house, you understand?"

 _Yeah, I understand, old man._

The doorknob rattles, and I go back to pushing on the window frame. It gives slightly, squeaking sharply and inching upwards a couple centimeters.

Thank _God._

The sound seems to get his attention and the pounding starts again. I hear another book fall behind me, and I flinch, pushing harder on the window. It's slowly cooperating, moving upwards ever-so-slightly, but at this rate, it's not going to open fast enough to beat the desperation of a drunk man in a rage.

"What the hell are you doing, huh? What the hell you tryin' to hide from me?"

I grind my teeth together and plant my feet a decent distance away from the window, my right foot in front of my left. I push all my weight into my hands, hear my sweaty palms squeak as they push.

 _C'mon, you piece of shit, work with me here._

Apparently insulting it is what it takes for the window to finally cooperate. With one last push, the window slides cleanly upwards, opening widely enough for the mugginess of the May air outside to hit my face. My eyes widen, and I almost can't believe it actual worked. I blink at the sight of the darkened yard stretching out in front of me, and from there are the identical yards of half a dozen neighbors, and then out of The Twelfth Sector neighborhood, into town…into freedom.

"Well, shit," I breathe. I softly slap the side of the window in appreciation, "Nice job, buddy,"

I grip the frame of the window and swing my feet upwards to hit the sill. I run over my plan for jumping down the single story to the yard below, and then take my hands off the window frame and tuck them against my sides instead.

I try to land with a smooth roll onto the ground, but one of my legs doesn't fold in fast enough and I end up digging one shoulder straight into the soft mulch of the ground as the right side of my face takes the brunt end of my fall. I grunt and sit up, groaning when I see several pale, crushed flowers around me. I've landed in the middle of Snow's rose garden.

I feel a sharp pinch on my cheek and arm, and know immediately I'd gotten bitten by some of the thorns. I scramble back on my feet, and I sigh in relief at the pure silence behind me. Snow must have given up and gone to his room.

Unfortunately, this new silence only amplifies the soft crunching below me, and I look down to see that the soles of my boots have crushed some of the plump white blooms from the garden.

Oh, God, he's fucking neurotic about those roses. Good thing I won't be around to feel the sting of the punishment.

But Lavinia might be there.

Oh, Jesus, Lavinia.

 _Please have the sense not to come back. At least not for a little while._

 _Please don't let him hurt you because of me._

After offering up my silent prayer to my guardian's girlfriend, I slip through the broken segment of Snow's chain link fence and tread through our next door neighbor's backyard. They have a pretty short, sorry-looking line of shrubs separating them from the next yard, and I clear it pretty easily.

I make it down the row of poorly separated lawns pretty easily, and then a cramp rips through my side and I freeze. I keel over, pressing my hands to my knees, and take a shaky breath.

I need to take a breath, that's all. Maybe some find some water. I should have grabbed water and food earlier. I need some hydration. I need calories. I need-

Fuck, I need to find some transportation, that's what I need.

The only safe place I can think to go to is my brother's house, but I can't exactly get there on foot, and I don't exactly trust the selection of drivers who would be willing to take a hitchhiker this late at night.

Oh my God, I didn't think through any of this.

I'm out of the house, in the middle of the night, with no plan and no supplies.

 _Peeta, you fucking moron._

I shuffle my feet, turning in a circle, looking up at the dirty exteriors of the surrounding houses, like they'll offer up some sort of answer.

And shockingly, they do.

I spot a slightly misshapen paper mache and yarn dream catcher hanging in the back window of the house in front of me, and I take a step closer, trying to ignore what an absolute stalker I am for looking into a stranger's bedroom.

Only it's not a stranger's bedroom. I know who lives here. Kind of.

And kind of knowing someone is as good as I'll get right now.

 ** _Katniss, 12:34 AM_**

I feel my body stir before I'm even aware I'm up. Or, kind of up.

My eyes are still cemented shut, but I'm awake, my mind becoming aware of the weight of the quilt on my torso, my rattle of the ancient air-conditioner in the hall, Prim's breath in my ear as she lies next to me in our bed, her sleep as unshakable as ever.

I lay there, in between dreaming and waking, for a solid two minutes before I realize the reason I'm even conscious before my alarm: there's a soft pounding somewhere behind my head, and I stir again, still barely awake, and peel my unwilling eyes open to investigate.

I peer around the room, feeling the need to check things out despite the fact that the noise has disappeared. I glance at the discarded clothes on the floor, Prim's dance shoes in front of the closet, my textbooks piled high on my desk. It's a wreck, as much as you can expect from a shared bedroom with two teenage girls, but nothing's exactly out of the ordinary.

I close my eyes again, convinced that whatever woke me up was more imagined than real, or if it was real, then it was just a tree branch brushing on the house, or some wild animal pounding through our yard.

And then I hear it again.

My eyes open, this time much more easily, and I sit up, scrubbing my hand over my face. Prim's slender arms are thrown over my torso and I carefully pull them off as I roll over and squint in the direction of the noise, the singular windows that looks out over the backyard.

What I see makes my heart stop.

A face. A human face.

A human face that I recognize.

I pull my legs over the edge of the bed, yanking the tangled bedsheets off my legs before I stumble over to the window, pushing Prim's homemade dream catcher out of the way as I open the window and stare at the boy standing outside.

It takes me a minute to pinpoint exactly where I've seen those wild blonde curls and wide shoulders before, and then a name comes to me. Peeta Mellark.

I've only seen him in passing before, sitting out in his yard as I passed by, or taking at the trash the same time I did on Monday nights. I'm pretty sure I only know his name because I'd introduced myself once, when he'd first moved in a few years ago. He's a neighbor in the most basic sense of the word, just a guy who lives a few houses down that I never have any reason to talk to.

But now he's standing under my bedroom window, his face bathed in the dusty, faint glow of the outdoor lights. He looks pretty worse for wear, with a scratch under one bright blue eye and another one down his arm, just underneath the black sleeve of his t-shirt. If I wasn't so weirded out by this entire situation, I'd wonder what had happened to him.

He adjusts one of the backpack straps on his shoulder and lifts his chin at me.

"Hey, Katniss, sorry we never talked before but you might want to grab your keys, I need a favor,"

" _What?_ " I blink, wincing as an ache ran through my skull, alerting me that I really need to go back to bed, "Why-What does that even mean?"

"What do you think it means? I need to get somewhere, and I need you to take me,"

"Go ask someone else. Or better yet, go the fuck home. It's midnight," I snap. I reach up and grip the top of the window, prepared to shut it in his face, but before I can he sticks his arm straight through the window. His hand brushes over the fabric of my t-shirt and I freeze, my breath trapped painfully in my chest.

"Hey, don't do that. Please,"

He blinks at me, then slowly retracts his arm. I really should still close this window, but my fingers are frozen, unable to pull it down.

"I—uh—listen, I really do need this. And I can't go home,"

"What, are you running away or something?" I chuckle. When he doesn't answer, I widen my eyes and lean further out of the window, "Holy shit, you are,"

"Yeah, I am. Look," he looks over his shoulder and then back at me, lowering his voice, "I have cash. I can pay for gas, and then something else upfront if you want. Or afterwards. Just—please, help me out,"

"Are you high or something?"

"No. God no. I'm just trying to get your help right now, so can you please hear me out?"

"Yeah, I'll hear you out. Why don't you tell me why you're running away, anyways?"

He shrugged, "Things are kind of bad at home. I'd rather not say much else. Now can you please just decide if you're going to help or not?"

"You—okay, hang on, this is too fuckin' weird for me right now," I groan, lifting my hands away from the window so I can scrub my eyes, "So—you need a ride. And you need me to be the one that gives it to you. And you won't tell me why I should take you,"

"Exactly,"

"Then why the hell are you asking me to do this, huh? I've talked to you twice in my life,"

"You have a car,"

"A lot of people have cars,"

"Yeah, but I can't trust a lot of other people,"

I squint at him, my eyes partially obscured by my fingers, "Since when do you trust me? We. Don't. Know. Each other,"

"Yeah, so I know you're not going to tell anyone about this," he raises his eyebrows, and I immediately know he's right. No one from my school knows Peeta, the only people I could possibly tell would be Mom and Prim. The first wouldn't really care, and the second would be curious but harmless.

After a minute he sighs and shrugs the straps of his bag off his shoulders, unzipping it and sticking his hand inside. When his hand comes out, it's gripping four creased bills with dark green twenties printed on the edges.

"See? I have—I have more than this. I'll give this to you right now, and if you want anything else, I'll give it to you. Just—please, Katniss, help me out here,"

I lick my lips and drum my fingers on the sill, focused on the payment he's offering. I should probably question where he even got that money, since there's a fat chance it's actually his. But…still. I've been a lot of hours off work this week since it's nearly finals week and I've had to dedicate my time to both my own studying and the overloaded tutoring program at school. A quick bump in cash would be nice.

Of course, there's the whole possibility that he might try to steal my car or hurt me or something, but I didn't get through seventeen years in this neighborhood without learning some self-defense, or at least how to scream loud. Plus, Peeta doesn't seem like a fighter. I would hear his name more in the streets if he was.

And…how much is he asking of me, really?

Just a drive. He probably won't have to go that far, and even if he wants to get out of town altogether, the border of The Districts is only twenty minutes from here. I'll do my good deed, get some cash, and then come back home, to my bed and my life, with a weird, funny story to tell in homeroom tomorrow.

 _Hey, so this crazy kid who's lived next to me for years came to my window last night and asked me to drive him somewhere. Yeah, I know, right? Gave me eighty bucks. Weirdest night ever. Hey, you still want the answers to the biology homework?_

I lean away after the window, glancing between the green of the bills in his hands and the watery, pleading blue of his eyes.

Somewhere between my empathy and my pure need for money, my resolve crumbles.

"Go meet me by the back door so I can let you in. I'm fucking tired of standing by this window,"

 ** _Katniss, 12:47 AM_**

"Keep the headlights off,"

I turn my head and glare at Peeta, sitting in my passenger seat. He's pulled a hoodie out of his bag, and now has it zipped up to his throat, with the hood pulled fully over his head, completely obscuring his blonde hair and most of his face. He won't even look at me.

The after math of this decision is hitting me hard, and the main conclusion I've made is that this is fucking ridiculous.

I should not be out right now. I should be in bed with my little sister, fitting in the little sleep I can before my alarm goes off in six hours. Instead, I'm sitting in my car in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, gripping the steering wheel of my car, while my neighbor sits slumped down in the passenger seat, giving me shitty driving advice.

All for eighty bucks. So far.

Where the hell did my logic go in all of this?

"It's pitch black. Do you want this favor to begin with me crashing into something?" I snap.

"I kind of hoped you'd be a better driver than that,"

"I am. You just don't drive without headlights in the middle of the night,"

"Well this isn't fucking driver's ed, is it? Just do it,"

" _Hey_ ," I reach over and rip the hood off his head. He jumps, whipping around to me, his hair wild with static.

"What the hell was that for?"

"You don't tell me what to do. My car, your favor. You piss me off, you can walk to wherever you need to go. Got that?"

"Jesus, I got it," he hisses, pulling his hood back up, "Look. I just—no one can know I'm out, okay? And if you pull out of here with lights on, both us are going to have hell to pay. So just do it. Please. If you care so much about your damn lights, you can turn them back on once we get out of the neighborhood,"

Something in his tone makes me narrow my eyes, "Peeta, exactly how much trouble are you in?"

"None right now. I'll be in a lot if you turn your fucking headlights on,"

"Alright, alright. I'll—they're off. See?" I start the car, but the lights remain completely off, my only visibility in the occasional set of porch lights in the surrounding houses.

I pull out slowly, and as I drive, I realize there's no sound around us aside from the soft roll of tires on pavement and the gargled sound of my ancient car engine. Peeta's holding his breath, and I realize, from the tightness of my chest and the lack of sound passing my lips, that I am too.

Obviously he's freaked out, but why am I?

I force myself to take one slow exhale and then inhale again. This is his problem. No need for me to get sucked too far in.

Once we clear the corner, the brilliant white letters on a green street sign flash in the darkness, indicating we're officially out of The Twelfth Sector. Thank God.

"Alright, where are we going?" I sigh, finally switching the headlights on. The light blazes over the street, illuminating the squat houses just outside of our neighborhood. I turn my head, inching the car forward as I wait for him to tell me what our destination is, "Peeta? Where do you need to go?"

"Capitol,"

The name of the far-away city makes my foot presses on the brake, " _What_? That's a five hour drive,"

"Yeah, I know,"

"But it's Wednesday night. I'll be late for school tomorrow for I drive there and back,"

"Okay, so you'll be late. Shockingly, that's not the end of the world,"

"Well, maybe you can miss school all you want, but I can't,"

"Can't you do it? Just this once? I don't really have a lot of other options,"

"And this is seriously all you have? To drag me into your crazy little—fucking delinquent world?" I snap, "Fuck this, I'm taking you to a shelter. Figure your own shit out,"

Peeta jumps across the console, grabbing my arm and making me swerve, "No, no, no, please do not—don't do that,"

"Jesus, what the hell?" I twist my neck to look down at him, his hood thrown back over his head, one bright blue eye completely hidden under the black fabric.

"Look, I'm sorry this couldn't have happened on a nice, convenient, Friday night, but I can't control when shit happens to me. And yeah, I don't have a lot of other options. Actually, I don't have _any_ options, except you,"

"Um," I lick my lips and force my foot off the brake. The car lurches a few one-mile-per-hour inches forward and I hear Peeta sigh as he pulls himself back into his seat.

I understand if he doesn't want to go to the shelter. Our town is known for a lot of poverty and doesn't have a lot of resources to help with the issue. The only men's shelter in town is usually fully occupied with drug addicts who would probably tear Peeta apart.

But—he has _nothing_ else? Really?

What the hell had happened to him?

And why does he have to go so far?

"What's in Capitol?" I ask carefully.

"My brother. Bannock,"

"I didn't know you had a brother,"

"You don't know anything about me," he snaps and then groans, "God, I'm sorry. And I have two, if you care. Both older,"

"Oh. Okay," I lick my lips, "Where does…does your other brother live closer, maybe?"

"The last I heard from him he was living in Colorado, so no. And to answer the questions I'm sure you have, yes, this is only my place to go, because, no, I don't have anyone else to stay with. And no, Bannock doesn't know I'm coming,"

Right. Of course he doesn't. Because why would he have any of his shit together?

Despite my pure frustration at him dropping this on me, and looping me into such a big production, I don't have the heart to betray him, drive him to the shelter, and go the hell home.

Even if he's not telling me what, I can tell something is seriously wrong with him. And my damn protective instinct, the same one that made me buckle down and help my mom and little sister survive years ago is coming back full force, and it's not going to let me do anything but take Peeta exactly where he needs to go.

"Um, okay, that's fine," I finally tell him, "I'll drive you to Capitol. Even though you won't tell me exactly why I need to, and you don't know what you'll do when you get there, I will," I look over and smirk at his surprised expression, "You better be paying me well for this,"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you want," he chuckles, "And hey, I'm not a delinquent,"

"What?"

"You said you didn't want to get pulled into my crazy delinquent shit. Well, I'm not a delinquent. I've never been arrested, actually,"

"Well. That's, uh, that's good," I look over at him one last time as I turn the corner and jump at the sight of thin red lines running down his face, "Peeta, you're bleeding,"

"What?" he touches a finger to his cheek, then winces and pulls it away, blinking at the red-stained skin, "Ah. Do you have any tissues? I probably shouldn't bleed all over your car ten minutes into the drive,"

"Are you—you know what, sure," I sigh, opening my console and pulling out a nearly empty packet of Kleenex, "Clean up a little, then I'll stop by the first gas station I see and get some band-aids. Check your arm, that scratch might have opened up, too,"

"You don't have to do that," he protests, dabbing at his cheek. He unzips his hoodie and pulls the sleeve away enough to glance at the skin, and curses when he sees how bright red his scratch is, and how thin lines of blood are crawling down his pale arm.

"A box of band-aids is like five bucks, it's fine. Besides, we can get some food there, too. Are you hungry?"

"Not really,"

I squint at him, but he's not looking at me, instead staring at his fingers as they drum against his injured arm.

I've known being hungry. And I used to lie about it a lot, too.

"You're a fucking liar. We're stopping,"

"But—don't you want to get there as fast as possible?"

"Well, yeah. But this won't take long," I shrug, "Besides, who said I didn't care about you bleeding all over my car?"

 ** _Peeta, 1:16 AM_**

Having Katniss Everdeen drive me all the way to Bannock's place wasn't exactly my first choice of transportation.

But I didn't really have any other options. The city buses stopped running a few hours ago, and even if I had made it to the nearest bus stop and waited for the first bus in the morning, Snow probably would've found me by then. Same outcome if I had gone to the shelter. Plus, there was the pain-in-the-ass fact that I didn't have a car of my own, or even a driver's license, since I'd never taken a driving class and got pretty everywhere by bus or on foot. So this is what I got.

And what I got kind of sucked right now.

I should've known Katniss would protest about missing school or some shit. I didn't know a lot about her, but I'd seen her come home dressed in a black polo shirt monogrammed with the crest of Coin Academy, the city private school. It didn't exactly take a genius to figure out that she couldn't afford the tuition, so she was probably one of their scholarship kids.

At least that meant she was responsible, and probably too afraid of getting in trouble to tell anyone in town what had actually happened to me if they asked.

But she really likes to make a fuss out of everything. She sees me bleeding and suddenly she's a nurse. I briefly wonder what she would think if she had the opportunity to see me on the days Snow used me as the ideal place to start a new bruise collection.

I open my eyes at the sounding of doors clicking around me, and lift my head to see Katniss climbing into the driver's seat, closing the door behind her and using her other hand to set a red and white plastic bag on top of the center console. The smell of greasy gas station food fills the car, and my stomach clenches at the thought that I haven't eaten anything since a limp sandwich at work nearly twelve hours ago.

"Oh, thank God, I'm so hungry," I reach for the bag, but she pushes my hand away before I can even touch it.

"We're taking care of those cuts first," she says, pulling out a blue cardboard box for the bag. She opens it and gets out a strip of bandages, and then rips off the thin paper casing that covers them.

She looks up and squints at me. Her thumb disappears into her mouth for a moment and then she's reaching out, touching her wet, spit-covered thumb to my face. I flinch away, pressing myself into the door of the car.

"What the hell?"

"You had dried blood on your face, God, don't make it weird," she grumbles. She peels the paper backing off of the band-aid and presses it to my cheek, smoothing it down, "What happened to you, anyways?"

"I fell in Snow's roses bushes,"

"He owns rose bushes? Seriously?"

"Yeah, I don't get it, either," I chuckle, "I did a number on them on my way out, though,"

"How'd you fall straight into them, though? What did you do, go out a window?"

When I'm silent, her eyes flick up to mine and her mouth opens.

" _Peeta_ ,"

"What, you think a runaway's gonna just casually walk out the front door? 'So long Ma, so long, Pops, I'll write when I get to the big city',"

"Shut up," she mumbles. She gets another band-aid and smooths it over my arm, "What's the deal with you and Snow, anyways? I've seen him around a few times, but he looks too old to be your dad. Is he like an uncle or something?"

"God no. I'm not related to him at all. He's my guardian, that's all,"

"And you're not going to tell me anything else, are you?"

"Do you need to know much else?"

She sighs and shakes her head, balling up the paper from the bandages in her hands, "I guess not. C'mon, let's eat,"

"Thank _God_ ,"

She hands me a couple lukewarm hot dogs wrapped in silver foil and a bag of chips, then pulls her Styrofoam coffee cup out of the cup holder and raises it to her lips, turning the key over with her other hand.

I unwrap the food and let it sit in my hands for a moment as I stare almost reverently at it, and then I begin to inhale it, barely tasting anything except grease and salt and heat. Afterwards I lick my fingers free of any last bits of oil and reach for a napkin to clean off my face. I feel heavy all over, in my stomach and eyes and head, but my chest feels so light it could float.

I open my mouth, a loud, drawn-out yawn pouring out. Katniss glances over at me with a raised eyebrow.

"You tired?"

"I guess so," I say, thinking back on how I hadn't even slept at all tonight, or the night before, really. I'd been so wrapped up in just getting out. The lack of sleep is catching up to me now, and I stifle another yawn against the back of my hand, "It…it hasn't exactly been a restful night,"

"You should sleep. It's a long drive," I expect her to bitterly snap out the last part, but she doesn't. She just looks over at me expectantly, her eyes silently questioning why I'm not already sawing logs.

"Uh…yeah. I guess I could close my eyes for a little bit,"

"Yeah. Maybe close your mouth while you're at it,"

We both snort and she turns her eyes back to the road, "Go to sleep, Peeta,"

"Yes, ma'am," I pull my hood back up over my head and lean my head into the headrest, letting my heavy eyes close. I feel my entire body relax along with my eyes, and soon all I feel is the weight of my limbs, the movement of the car, and the first notes of a rap song pumping through the speaker near my foot as Katniss turns on the radio as I drop off.

 ** _Katniss, 2:05 AM_**

Peeta slept like a rock.

As the first hour on the road passed, my adrenaline had completely dissipated, replaced only with the manufactured energy of the caffeine in my system. I turned the radio on, loud, to keep myself from swerving off the road or into one of the few cars that remained on the road. And even through the blaring beat of the latest R & B hits, he remained still, his head pressed to the glass of the window, his mouth slightly parted.

Part of it was peaceful, driving along without him mouthing off every few seconds. But it was also lonely. In his sleep, he looked a lot more tame, and that bandage plastered on his pink cheek wasn't doing much to quell the overwhelming innocence that overtook his sleeping face.

And there was the whole issue of how right before he'd dropped off, it was almost like…he'd stopped pissing me off, and I'd actually started to enjoy having him with me.

Wait, what the hell?

I was clearly more exhausted than I thought.

Eventually, he stirs, a hand reaching up to swipe his face. He blinks his giant blue eyes at me and then closes them again as a car with a bright set of headlights sweep past us in the opposite lane.

"Hey," he croaks.

"Well there you are," I reach over and turn down the radio until the noise is barely a whisper, "And just when I was getting a little peace and quiet for once,"

He makes a noise that's somewhere between a groan and a laugh, "Are you even going to try to be nice to me?"

I shrug and put on my turn signal as I slide into a different lane, "We're not friends. And you're already kind of pushing your limits with this drive,"

"And yet, you agreed to do this,"

"Well, I still I don't know why I am. You won't tell me what the hell you're running away from," I say. I feel like I have an idea, sure. Life in that house must have been pretty bad, but I'm clearly not getting any more specific details.

"You don't need to know why _I'm_ running away to know why _you're_ taking me,"

"Well, then, money. That's why I'm doing this,"

"I better give you more, then," he chuckles. He reaches for his backpack and starts unzipping it, but I put my hand over his, stopping him.

"Don't worry about it. I'm kidding. You've given enough for now, anyways,"

"No, I want to," he insists, pulling up what I realize is a folded-up sock. He opens it up and digs inside, eventually pulling out a fifty dollar bill, and offers it to me, "Here. Take it,"

A car horn blares at me and I jump as I realize looking at Peeta for so long has put me seriously outside the lines. After I adjust my wheel so I'm back in my lane, I pull up to the nearest red traffic light, and turn to him again. My fingers curl into a loose fist and I extend my arm towards him, because, yeah, that cash looks damn tempting, but something just seems too suspicious and morally wrong about this whole thing.

Peeta shakes the bill at me, "Katniss. It's a gift. It's yours. Just take it,"

"Okay," I relent, reaching out for it. Green light washes over my windshield and I ease my foot off the brake, folding the bill over in my hand as I go back to driving, "But be honest with me here: this money isn't yours, is it?"

"Well, clearly, no,"

"So where'd you get it?"

I see Peeta shrug out of the corner of my eye, "Well, some of it _is_ from my job. But most of it is from Snow. He has a lot of savings sitting around in his drawers, and I just kind of…found some and grabbed it all,"

"How much is 'all' exactly?"

"I don't know. A few thousand dollars, maybe,"

The number almost makes me swerve again but I manage to pull it together enough to ask him another question, "And you felt you needed that much?"

"Um, I knew I'd need something. I kind of just took all of it to piss him off,"

I shake my head at his recklessness, "So you really can't go back, then,"

"That's the plan,"

I nod and look down at the green corners sticking out of my hand. I think back to the few times I actually saw Snow come out of his house, and nothing extraordinary came to mind. He was an old guy who lived in a crappy house, wore crappy clothes, and occasionally yelled at people to shut the hell up. Definitely not the kind of guy you would think kept a small fortune stuck in his sock drawer.

"How did Snow live in a place like Twelfth and have all this cash?" I wonder aloud.

"That would be filed under reasons I'm running away, and hence things I can't tell you,"

"I think I've run out of being able to ask you things you can actually tell me,"

"Can I ask _you_ something, then?"

"Why not,"

"How'd you get into Coin? I thought that place kept their applications locked down,"

I shrug. Weird question, but okay. I briefly wonder how he knows I go there but I guess it's not exactly a secret around town, and he might have seen me coming home in my uniform.

"I was in a lot of advanced programs in middle school. I couldn't exactly afford to do a lot of activities; my sister did dance but that sucked up a lot of our spending money. So I studied instead, and I got some of the best grades in my school. Turns out Coin has to meet these quotas for poor scholarship kids, so one of their recruiters found me and told me I could go there for all of high school and get my tuition waved. I figured if I wanted to go to a good college and be able to support my family later, a private school would offer me more programs and credibility than an intercity public school that didn't even have a school library,"

"Support your family, huh? Is it really bad for you guys?"

"We live in Twelfth, what do you kind?" I snort, "It's not as good as other people have it, but I guess it's not awful. At least not as bad as it used to be. My dad left years ago, and my mom makes enough, I guess. But before she got her job, we had a stretch where we were having tea and toast for every meal, and then no food at all for a few days. I don't want to go back to that, so I do what I can to give my sister and I a back-up plan if anything happens to Mom,"

I don't know why I'm telling him all this. Maybe because I'm so tired, or because I just need to get that out, because I haven't really told anyone about our situation before. Also, I'm probably never going to see Peeta again, so what harm can it really do?

He's silent for a little while, and when he speaks he's thankfully moved away from my previous story.

"Do you like it there? At Coin?"

"I guess. Not a lot of the people there talk to me, but that's okay. I didn't go there to make friends,"

"So I'm guessing that that guy I see coming by your house doesn't go to school with you?"

"What, Gale?" _Yes, obviously. Any other guys knocking down your door, Katniss?,_ "No, he doesn't. We knew each other from middle school. But he's kind of fallen into some bad shit lately, so I've been trying not to hang out with him as much,"

I take one hand off the steering way and run it through my hair, then rest my elbow against the door, "God, I have one friend and he's a fucking deadbeat,"

I laugh hollowly and after a second Peeta joins me, but his laugh quickly fizzles out.

"You know, maybe if you were nicer to me, I could be your friend,"

This makes me laugh again, until I turn to look at him and the noise dies in my throat. His eyes are so bright and earnest, and something starts in my chest seeing him like that.

"I—I guess you could say I have the same problem, that's all. And we're going to be spending a lot of time together, so why not?" he continues, "Doesn't even have to be permanent or anything. You can ignore me for the rest of your life after this drive is over,"

He tries to laugh while he says it, but it falls flat, and I realize that maybe he needs someone more than he's letting on.

"Yeah. I guess we can try, just for a little bit,"

 _Peeta, 3:40 AM_

The drive with Katniss just starts to be bearable—enjoyable, even—until we drive straight into a place we really should have been avoiding.

The small, dented sign announcing "Welcome to the Village of Arena" is practically unreadable, thanks to the neon spray paint over the words and the pure amount of wear and rust it's picked up over the years. The word "welcome" is almost completely rubbed away, which should be a warning in and of itself. The fact that "Arena" is almost hidden behind the giant, streaked red word "HELL" and a scratched-out message of "Get out or get cut, bitch" lies beneath it only makes matters worse.

Katniss admitted somewhere along the knot of roads a few miles back that she only loosely knew how to get to Capitol, and since she doesn't have a GPS on her phone she's using her memory and a slightly outdated road map in her glovebox to the get us there. Apparently, her route leads down a one-way road into this place, and there isn't really a way to turn around. We just have to go through.

I stretch my neck, squinting against the darkness to survey our surroundings. Tall, skinny buildings surround us on the narrow road. They appear to be government-subsidized housing, like the kind we have back in The Districts, but it's clear there's been barely any upkeep here. The yards are trampled and filled with dirt, most of the houses look boarded up or have faded, bent "for lease" signs stuck in the yards.

This place makes Twelfth look like the damn Hamptons.

"Wow," I breath as we passed through the first row of houses and go straight into another neighborhood just like it, "No offense, but your routing skills kind of suck,"

Katniss remains silent, and I turn to look her. Her eyes are pointed downward, her eyebrows cinched and her mouth straight. I reach over and touch her shoulder.

"I was kidding. Sorry,"

"I know," she snaps and then sighs, "Peeta, I'm almost out of gas,"

I glance at the dashboard, seeing the gas meter's indicator is quivering next to the bright red E. I curse and look at the window, seeing nothing but dark road and rust-dotted homes.

"How far can you go just on fumes?" I ask, squinting into the darkness like a gas station will appear out of thin air.

"Maybe for a little bit, but…not that far," she grips the wheel and lifts her head, joining me in a fruitless search for gas, "And I don't…I don't want to break down here, of all places,"

"Yeah, me neither. We'll keep our eyes open, okay? Just keep driving, hang in there,"

She nods, slowing her speed slightly. We roll through more semi-abandoned neighborhoods. Occasionally I catch sight of pit bulls roaming in the beaten-down yards, or see people in the windows, looking down at us, their expressions obscured by darkness and half-closed curtains. It sends cold chills down my spine, and I will my eyes to look nowhere but forward, but the feeling doesn't go away.

After weaving through a few more identical neighborhoods, we hit a plain stretch of highway, and I lean forward at the same time Katniss does, barely believing what I'm seeing. There's an empty lot ahead of us, and in the middle of it is a small store with a short row of gas pumps in front. Finally.

I hear Katniss sigh in shaky relief as she pulls into the lot, and the faint light illuminating the row of gas pumps reveals faded post-its taped to the machines. The first says "Broken. Use 2 and 3" while the others say "Pay inside, please."

Katniss pulls up next to one of the working pumps, then glances nervously between the note, the darkened area surrounding us, and me.

"Um," she gulps and looks over at me, "This place is sketchy as hell,"

"Yeah, no shit,"

"I just…I don't know if I want to walk across there and go in," she explains, "Could—could you maybe go in and get it? God, that's so fucking sexist, but could you?"

I sigh, "Sure. I'll go. Just starting pumping now if it'll let you, and then I'll pay and be right back. Have the keys in the ignition and ready to go when I get out, okay? We'll get the hell out as fast as we can, I promise,"

She's still staring at the gas meter, so I lean over to nudge her arm, "Hey, Katniss. It's fine. We're fine,"

She nods quickly, and I return the action, slowly pulling my hand away. I reach into the glovebox, retrieve two of the twenties I gave her earlier and stuff them into my pocket, then grab my backpack and start unlocking the door. Just as I'm pushing it open, I feel her small hand on my elbow, her fingers sweaty and hot from gripping the steering wheel for so long. I gaze down at her hand and then up at her eyes.

"Hurry, okay? I just—I have a bad feeling,"

"I just told you I would,"

"I know. But this place…this isn't safe, Peeta. I don't want anything to happen to you," she shakes her head, "I know you don't really give a fuck about whether or not I like you, but someone's got to be worried about you getting to your brother in one piece,"

"I do actually give a fuck about whether or not you like me," I say, trying to make her laugh. So far, I'm failing, "Um, do you?"

"I do right now. I won't if you don't shut up and get in there,"

"Right. Of course," I swallow, hard, "I'll be in and out, no problem,"

I offer her one last tight smile, and then open the door and hustle out of the car and across the lot. The air outside smells like spilled booze and stale cigarettes, and I cough as I reach the door of the store and push it open.

As I enter, I notice a group of guys in their mid-twenties clustered by one of the fluorescent drink fridges in the back. A few of them glance up when the bell above my head signals my entrance, and they look me up and down before offering a nod of acknowledgment at me. I return it and try to shake the unease in my stomach as I walk up to the counter and the rough-looking man behind it, who sets down his dog-eared newspaper to look at me.

"Uh, hi, I'm just here for gas," I tell him. I place the bills in my hand on the counter, but he just looks at them and then up at me with raised eyebrows.

"Is that all you got?"

"Yes,"

"You want a full tank for that?"

"Well, yeah,"

He laughs and shakes his head, "Nah, a tank around here's sixty,"

"Are you kidding me?"

"Hey, supply and demand, kid. You seem to have a lot of demand, and not a lot of supply. So I've got the monopoly here, and I'm telling you it's sixty for a full tank,"

I roll my eyes at the brief economics lesson, but I still swing my bag off my shoulder and unzip the top, digging for the sock. During my search, the group of guys passes behind me. The man in front of me glances at them, scowling.

"Do you boys plan on keeping up the whole window shopping tradition up or are you actually going to buy something from me one of these days?"

"Oh, c'mon, Haymitch, lighten the fuck up. Ain't like you're going out of business anytime soon," one of them replies, flashing a smile full of crooked, far-from white teeth.

The cashier, Haymitch, just shakes his head, "You're goddamn lucky I don't have much competition around here, otherwise you would have to find another shithole to play in at this ungodly hour," he finally turns back to me, "Kid. Still waiting for your gas money,"

"Oh. Right. Sorry,"

My hand closes in on the sock, and I slowly pull it out. I hunch my shoulders, trying to hide it out of the view of my new companions as I pull out the rest of the cash I need. Unfortunately, I keep pulling out fives, and I have to open up the fabric a little wider than I wanted to, flashing a clear view of the bills nestled inside.

I quickly tuck it away again after the transaction is done, but I glance over my shoulder to see the pack of guys clustered by the door. The biggest one in front raises his eyebrows and gives me a cold smile, then nods to his head to the group and opens the door.

A cold feeling sweeps into my stomach as I watch them file out, and I stand there, frozen and staring at the "Closed" side of the paper sign hanging in the door.

"Kid. Kid," I turn at the sound of Haymitch's voice and see him looking at me with an expression trapped between pity and genuine concern, "Listen. I'm going to tell you this because, I've known those boys for years. I can guarantee they took interest in that little stash of yours , and they're not exactly the type to let that slip by. Now, maybe some of them would just push you around, take a little bit, most of them are just frustrated, bored, really. But Cato, that boy in the front there—he can get dangerous, and drags the rest of them into it. So when you walk out of here, keep that bag pressed to your chest, and fucking run, okay? Get the hell out before they can get you, because once you step out of those doors, I can't help you if they do something to you,"

"You can't?" I don't mean for the words to slip out, but that cold feeling has slipped into my limbs now and I feel my knees shaking. This is too much to take in. I knew this place was bad, but I didn't expect to find out _how_ bad.

It's one thing to have a bad feeling, it's another to have your bad feeling turn into reality.

I'm not tough. I can maybe fight with the little wrestling training I have from when I was a kid, but what the hell am I supposed to do, tackle this Cato kid to the ground and put him in a headlock? I don't even have much physical practice dealing with Snow. I was smart enough to know not to fight him, ever. Now I'm kind of wishing I had tried, at least for the experience.

Haymitch smiles weakly at me, "Trust me, kid, you wouldn't want my help anyways. I ain't as strong as I used to be. And the police…they aren't exactly the speediest, even if I were to call right now,"

"Oh. Okay. Thanks for the advice, I guess,"

Part of me wants to scream at him to at least try to help me, but I push it down, take my bag off my shoulders, and squeeze it to my chest as I walk towards the entrance.

I push open the door, the small bell over the door tinkling in what sounds like my death toll. I take a cautious step until I'm at the edge of the dusty lighting over the station. I look towards the singular, lit-up pump and see Katniss sitting in the driver's seat, her hands already on the wheel, ready to go. She catches my eyes and her mouth opens, but I can't even get ready to read her lips before I hear a deep voice call out to me in the darkness.

"Hey, man,"

I turn and see the tallest member of the group—Cato—step towards me, flanked on both sides by his friends. They're one member short from what I saw inside, and I wonder where the other guy is. I lick my lips and try to keep the panic out of my voice.

"Hey,"

Cato crosses his arms and nods at me, his tone almost friendly, "You from out of town?"

I swallow, turning over the best way to approach this guy. Probably just to tell the truth, "Yeah. Just passing through,"

"Thought so,"

He flicks his eyes up to a point behind me, and a second later I feel a sharp point dig into my lower back. I feel a massive presence behind me, loud, panting breath pounding on the back of my head. Ah. So there's the extra gang member. On assignment to stab me with a switchblade.

Fantastic _._

Cato advances towards me, that icy smile never melting off his face, "Now look, I don't want to hold you up, so we can make this real easy on you if you just hand over that backpack,"

"I…if you want money, just tell me how much, I'll give it to you,"

The point digs further into my back, and I stiffen and close my eyes, feeling the tip slice into the fabric of my hoodie. Cato just chuckles and glances to the boys on either side of him being turning back to me.

"Nah, that's not what I'm asking you for, man. I told you to hand me your fuckin' bag,"

He takes another step towards me and grabs onto the bag, ripping it out from under my tight grip. My arms fall uselessly at my sides and I watch him open up the top and reach his arm inside, rifling around until he eventually finds something that catches his interest.

"Ah, shit!" he hoots, yanking out one battered shoe from the bag, "Looks like we've got ourselves a runaway!"

"Man, why the fuck would a loaded little bitch like this run away? Too drafty in the mansion?" one of the guys calls out.

"Nah, I bet his daddy bought him the wrong Lexus,"

"Nah, this ain't no trust fund bitch. You see the shit's he's wearing? I bet he stole all that cash," Cato lifts his head and nods at me, "Didn't you?"

"I—yeah,"

"Well that's irony, ain't it. You steal shit, and then we steal back. Like fuckin' Robin Hood or some shit, huh?"

He rips through the bag more, throwing my clothes to the ground. He pulls out my sketchbook and laughs, the sound loud and cracking. It was a voice I could practically smell cigarettes on.

"Aw, ain't that cute. You brought your doodles with you," he chuckles, rifling through a few pages. He rips out a few pages and passes them around to the group, and they eventually end up in crumpled balls on the ground. I close my eyes, closing my fists tighter, fighting away memories of when that damn book was the only sanity I had. I feel the thug behind me rotate the blade against my spine, opening up the slit in my jacket. A fresh wave of panic washes over me. What if they don't just steal my money and leave me alone?

"Oh, here we _go_ ," Cato crows, pulling out the balled-up sock and waving it in the air. He peels it apart, showing off the pale, folded bills inside to the group, who lean in for a closer look, whistling, "Looks like we can take a break for a few weeks, boys,"

"But, hey, Cato, what if this brat gets into town and tattles on us?"

"Nah, don't worry 'bout that. Our friend here isn't gonna tell no one, is he?" Cato grins. He reaches into his coat and pulls out a small tool with a faded red handle, and pushes a button on the side, causing a long, sharp blade to jump out, "But I think I'll have a little rifle through his pockets just to make sure,"

He takes a step forward, and my eyes water at the sight of the knife. It's clear he doesn't intend to just look through my pockets and then leave me alone.

"And then, once I'm done," he says slowly, "I think I'll go on over to the pumps and see what your girlfriend has to give me, huh?"

His eyes cut to Katniss's car, and I wish I could yell at her to just get out here, leave me, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do this to you, just save yourself and get out of here.

He's going to fucking kill me. This is how I'm going to die.

And then he's going to go after Katniss-

Oh my God.

The blade looms closer, and the point in my back lets up slightly. I breath.

I gotta go.

Now.

I spin around and attempt to slug the guy behind me, but his arm surges forward and I'm forced to jump out the way of the blade that's headed on a one-track route to my gallbladder. I feel bodies surging for my back and I throw my elbow directly behind me, managing to ram one of them in the ribcage. I hear the shuffle of boots on the concrete as the guy I just hit stumbles back, and I use the split second of confusion to sprint to the car, trying to gain as much distance as I can before they start following me.

The gas pumps rise up before me quickly, and I curse loudly as my knee rams right into the side of Katniss's car once I get there. My voice is rattling out of my throat from the second I open the door, and once I tumble inside, I reach out an arm to shake Katniss, who is already fully alert, and staring straight at me.

"Drivedrivedrivedrive—" I plead, but she's already on it, her hands fighting with the ignition. She turns her head, her eyes widening as she looks out the window. I dare a glance, too, and my gut twists as I see the group jogging towards us, the flash of blades in their hands cutting through the dark.

I see one of the guys hurl something in our direction, and a second later a pocketknife, blade out, slams into my window, shaking the glass, and then slides back to the ground. I hear Katniss shriek but I'm too shell shocked to do anything.

Useless, once again.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Katniss chants as her shaky hands finally manage to turn over the keys. The headlights cut through the lot a second before the car lurches forward out towards the road. I hear something else ping against the truck and clatter to the ground on the side of the car, probably another weapon, and some shouting behind us as she drives out.

"I—they took my bag—they—everything," I try to explain.

"Peeta. Not now,"

I nod and close my eyes, bracing myself for the screaming of tires behind us, for some sign that Cato's gang has managed to start pursuing us car chase style.

Instead, I hear nothing, and realize that they either don't have a car, or we're not worth chasing anymore.

I release the breath in my chest, but I still feel tight all over. I turn my head, looking at Katniss.

"I—"

"Shut up. Just—shut up. Please," she spits, "I don't want to hear you speak. Not now. Maybe not for the rest of the drive. So just do one good thing for me and shut up,"

"Right. Sorry," I press my lips together and look straight ahead. I hear her sigh, a faint "fuck" passing her lips.

We roll through the rest of Arena, then past the village border, onto more populated roads, but I stay silent through it all, and she doesn't ask me to start talking.

 ** _Peeta, 4:55 AM_**

We drive in silence for nearly a full hour. I occasionally dare to look over at Katniss, and all I see is wild, wide eyes, a heaving chest, and bulging white knuckles gripping the steering wheel. Blurry white lights from other cars and a collection of city welcome signs stream by the windows. I watch them all, listen to the sound of Katniss breath. The sky churns, inky black slowly giving way to increasingly paler shades of gray.

The sun will come up soon, I realize.

The thought should make me happy, hopeful. Instead all I think of is the ripped, dirty pages of my sketchbook strewn across that parking lot, and the furious girl in the driver's seat. I cringe and wait for her to kick me out, to throw me out onto the side of the road so I can sort out my own shit.

She never does. And somehow that makes it worse, because she's not giving me what I deserve.

Finally, when the sky is a creamy, rich dove gray and we're far in between road signs, she pulls over into an open stretch of grass on the edge of a thinned-out forest, the kind of place people take their pets out for a bathroom break.

She kills her engine and looks over at me. Her expression remains the same as it has for the entire drive: flat, slightly open mouth, wide eyes with critical eyebrows crushed over them. Her hands are off the steering wheel, but now they're clutched in tight fists in her lap, her knuckles still tight and ghostly white.

Finally, her mouth opens, and her voice comes out, stony and quivering at the edges.

"I—want—some fucking answers,"

"I—" I start to explain myself until I realize I don't how know. My mouth is bone dry. So is my throat, "I'm sorry about the money. I'll find a way to pay you back—"

That was apparently the wrong thing to say. She brings up one tightly gripped fist and smashes against the steering wheel, the horn wheezing out a loud, angry noise, "Damn it, Peeta, I don't care about the money! I care that we almost got fucking killed!"

"Right. Right. And I'm sorry. I should have been more careful. I didn't mean to get you in danger—I didn't plan for anything like this to happen,"

"Yeah, I doubt you planned on getting mugged and almost fucking murdered on your little rebellious road trip,"

My throat constricts and I swallow painfully, suddenly feeling the need to defend myself, "I'm not doing this for fun, you know. This isn't a game to me or something,"

"Then why are you doing this? Please, for the love of God, tell me what was so fucking important that you had to leave your house, go to a town five hours away to see a brother you have barely been in contact with, and bring me, someone you don't even know, into this mess. Tell me what was so important. Because like it or not, I'm part of this now. So you're going to have to give me some answers. Actually, you should have given me answers before this entire mess even started, but I'm in a forgiving mood if you start talking now,"

She's right. She deserves to know. But what she deserves also involves me pulling my shit together and getting this lump out of my throat.

I piece together the story in my mind, full of emotionally and physically painful moments, and when I've assembled what I hope is a decent enough tale, I swallow hard, my dry throat screaming in protest. I reach for the warm bottle of water in the cup holder and gulp some of the contents down, all too aware of Katniss' eyes boring into the side of my head as I delay answering her.

After I finish my drink, I lean into my seat and set my feet up on the dashboard as I look towards the dreary sky, calling up a feeble start to the conversation.

"It's—it's kind of a long story, I guess,"

She laughs, "I clearly don't have anywhere to be. But you do. So start talking, Mellark,"

"Right," I keep my eyes on the skyline ahead and hear the sound of my voice begin.

 ** _Katniss, 5:05 AM_**

"My mom," he begins slowly, "used to beat the shit out of me and my brothers,"

The traffic on the rest of the road whirs past us, jolting my heart every time they pass. Their lights illuminate Peeta's face, his mouth firm and straight, his eyes looking straight ahead. He gulps, his eyes flashing, like he's reliving a memory, or a series of them.

"The earliest I remember her hitting me, I was four. But she was doing it to my brothers for a while before that. She had a lot of issues—bipolar and some other problems that weren't getting taken care of. I don't know why she never got treated, we could definitely afford it, but—it never happened. And so she was always sick, and she kept hitting us,"

"Somehow, we managed to hide it. My dad tried really hard to keep it a secret, because I think he was scared of us being taken away. We'd call in sick to school a lot, and eventually we were able to get some sort of auto immune disease put down on our record to excuse all our absences as doctor's appointments. Dad knew a lot of really great people in the community, people who didn't ask questions. Dentists who would fix broken teeth and doctors who made handle casts and splints for broken bones, and do it pretty frequently, too. But one day…I think my dad must've been out of town or something, and my mom went nuts on us, and of course she was so in her own head that she had us go to school. Well, you know, nice community, seeing all three kids in one family come to school with black eyes and bruises one day isn't going to fly under the radar very well,"

A cargo truck printed with the logo of a dairy company breezes by, with loud, squealing tires and a blaring horn. Peeta pulls his feet off the dashboard and sets them back on the floor, and I remain transfixed on the dusty prints he left behind.

"An investigation went down, and it was pretty obvious that this had been going down for a while. A lot of those doctors ratted my parents out, and plus, we were pretty wrecked from everything. They had us talk to a shrink before any charges were pressed, and we all kind of broke down and started telling them about what had happened. So my parents lost custody of us and we went into the system. I was nine when it happened. My brothers were older, teenagers, and with everything that had happened to them, they never really got to go through a rebellious stage, I guess, so they were ridiculously mature and people liked that. They got great families right away and I just—didn't,"

"I bounced around a lot, I think the longest I stayed in a house was for a year, but usually it was just for a few months. I was a horrible kid, I had a lot of issues, so obviously that wasn't appealing to a lot of families. And then—three years ago, Snow came into the system and said he would take me,"

"And they let him take you? They decided he was okay?" I ask. I don't want to interrupt, but it's clear that living with Snow wasn't exactly a postcard perfect upbringing. Otherwise why would we be here?

"Yeah. He got through the paperwork and the home inspections and everything—and he was great, too, for a while. He let me stay up late because he was always out, let me watch R-rated movies by myself and eat all the junk I wanted. He was basically God," he licks his lips and drags a hand through his hair, making a few unwound curls stick straight up.

"Then, almost the second the paperwork went through, he moved me out of town. No warning to my brothers, to the agency, to anyone. Just uprooted and left, moved across the state to The Districts,"

"I remember the day you moved in," I say quietly, "You…uh…just had one suitcase, and I thought that was weird for someone moving into a new house, even for Twelfth. And you looked so scared,"

He snorts, "God, I had no reason to be. I was just nervous because I'd never been out of my hometown before. I had no goddamn clue what was going to happen to me,"

He stops for a moment, and I can see his wheels turning, rearranging pieces of a scattered story.

I realize that my mouth is hanging open and I force it to close.

"Snow had a lot of substance problems. It was some pills and drugs, but mostly it was alcohol. The drugs—he mostly dealt. That was his business, that's why he had so much money. He had a little circle in the old community, but he wanted to move and set up a new one, expand what his people were already giving me in the old place. He wanted me to help him out, draw in some of the younger guys in the community. That was the whole reason he'd gotten me out of the system, so he would have a secure dealer with him when he moved,"

"And the sick thing was, I did it. I knew it probably wasn't legal, yeah, but—I worshipped this guy. He'd gotten me out of the system, I was so grateful. But I had trouble making friends. And the friends I did have either weren't interested or they already had guys to give them what they wanted. I couldn't break into the business that was already in place, and I told Snow that I couldn't do it. He gave me some time and then tried to get me to do it again. And when I told him I just didn't want to, that was when he hit me for the first time,"

"It was like I hadn't gotten fucking anywhere, you know? And I should have stopped it right there—called into the agency people or something, or at least tried to fight back, but—he had me looped in. I didn't want to go back to hopping foster homes, and I didn't want anyone to find out I'd been dealing, even just for a few days, because I'd probably end up in juvie. So I stayed put. I kept to myself, got a job, went to school, stayed out of sight when he left marks I couldn't hide. I had experience, I was good at biting my lip and keeping my head down. But to him, I was always just this legal responsibility he had that had never paid off, and he had no problem taking out shit on me. And I just—I could have waited it out, you know? Saved myself and you some trouble. I turn eighteen in a little less than a year, actually, so I could get out of his house on my own. And we didn't exactly have one big, blowout fight that finally sealed the deal or anything like that. I just—I was tired. So tired. I've been tired my whole life. Of hiding, of lying, of surviving and not living. And now I'm running. And I'm tired of that too,"

He blinks, his hands fumbling with the cap of the water bottle still clutched to his chest.

"But yeah. There's your explanation. That's really fucking unfair, isn't it? To get an abusive mom and then an even more abusive foster dad? And at the end—to still feel guilty about it?"

I feel shock pump through my veins and I don't know why. I assumed abuse was part of the reason he wanted to leave, sure, but I didn't know it ran this deep.

I don't know what to say. Words pass through my brain like the cars whizzing down the highway, but they're all fleeting and half-formed and inadequate.

What do I say to this boy? This boy I spent three years of my life being parallel to but never even knew?

Why was the world so fucking unfair?

Instead of saying any of those things aloud, I throw out the first full thought I can grasp, which turns out to be the most worthless words I could think of.

"Why didn't—why didn't you ever call the cops?"

"You're kidding me, right? The police don't come Twelfth to help,"

Right. Of course. Out of all the residential sectors in the city, ours was by far the poorest, and was labeled as nothing more than a ghetto, even if other, wealthier segments passed us by tenfold for drugs and crime. We were always blamed for our own problems, and the police never even bothered to answer calls from the area anymore. Even if they picked up, a teenager calling in to report an abuse case or a drug dealing operation would probably be written off in their records as a prank call.

It makes me sick to my stomach to think about.

He blinks at me, his blue eyes liquid, his full mouth trembling.

"I've never told that to anyone before," he admits, "No one,"

"Well," I eventually say, "Thank you for telling me,"

He nods, "Katniss?"

"Yeah?"

"Unlock the door, I need to get out. I need air,"

"Um," I reach over to my door and press the unlock button, hearing the click sound through the car, "You're not going to run off, are you?"

He shakes his head, "I told you. I've had enough running,"

I nod and he ducks his head as he opens the door and climbs out. I watch as he steps into the middle of the grassy patch.

He stands stone still for a moment, his hands shoved into his pockets. Finally, he pulls his hands out, letting them fall to his sides. Even from here, I can tell he's shaking.

He lifts his chin to the sky. He closes his eyes. Opens them. Closes them again.

Then, he opens his mouth, stretching it wide, so wide it's like he's trying to swallow the sky.

His throat dips, and I hear the muffled sound of his scream from all the way inside the car.

 ** _Katniss, 5:46 AM_**

I stayed there, parked in the grass on the side of the highway, for half an hour. Peeta cried. A lot. It was fucking terrifying. Maybe I was just used to guys that were either like Gale, too hardened to show any trace of emotion, or like the guys at Coin, rich prepsters whose emotions were bleached out with money and mindless distractions.

I'd never seen a guy that emotional before, but clearly Peeta had bottled this shit for a while.

After the first scream, he sat down in the grass, his knees pulled to his chest, weeping. And then he was standing up, kicking the dirt loose, screaming again, some of it words and some of it just primal noises.

And now, he's sitting on the hood of my car, staring straight into the horizon. He's been there for a few minutes, long enough that his breathing seems to have slowed down. My fingers reach up to my door and I unlock it, climbing out. The sound of the early morning traffic immediately becomes clearer, and I take a breath of clean air for the first time in hours.

Maybe I should be giving him his privacy. But something makes me feel like there's no such thing as privacy between us anymore, not with everything we've told each other.

He doesn't flinch as I climb up next to him, my legs immediately warmed by the engine-heated metal beneath me. My hip bumps against his as I make myself comfortable, and I feel him unwind against me, his muscle loose and his body run dry.

It only takes a few moments before his head is on my shoulder, and I gaze down the pink skin under his eyes and in his cheeks, the bandage still plastered to the side of his face. All I can do is run my fingers through his thick hair and not say anything. I have a thousand words locked in my throat and none of them make it out.

I wonder again, what do you say to someone that broken?

What do you say when you're the only person who knows exactly how broken they are?

I realize that you don't say anything. You can't.

He pulls his head off my shoulder after a few minutes, blinking at me and then back to the space in front of him.

"How far away are we?" he croaks.

"An hour, maybe,"

"Okay," he blinks at the horizon, dusty gray stained with orange at the edges, "I should, uh, I'm going to make sure I have the right address. Can I use your phone?"

"Sure," I pull my knees up closer to my chest and wait for him to go back in the car, but instead he lifts his hand and points off into the distance, "That's my favorite color, you know,"

I squint at the sky, "Gray?"

"No. The orange,"

"Huh," I lean back and look at the bright shade, and then over to the boy sitting next to me, with his hole-riddled black shirt, combat boots, and bloodshot eyes, "I never would've guessed,"

"What's yours?"

"My favorite color? It's green. Like that," I point the trees surrounding the highway.

He looks at the tree line, like he's trying to not only memorize the color but also the shape of the leaves, the height of the trees, the distance they're spaced apart.

"Katniss," he finally says. He pulls his eyes away and looks at me, and his eyes are so wide and shiny and terrifying that I wish he'd look back at the damn trees.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you,"

"For what?"

"For—for—"

Then he stops talking, but his mouth is still open in an unspoken final word. His lips are still like that, frozen and open and full of promise, when they touch mine, and I feel cold oxygen rush into my mouth as I close my eyes, feel his mouth move.

He kisses me.

 _ **Peeta, 5:48 AM**_

I kiss her.

I shouldn't. God, I shouldn't. But she's there, and she knows more about me now than anyone else. Sure, other people have gotten pieces of my life. My brothers got the first nine years, the mixed bag of suburban foster parents got the next five, and then Snow got the last three. But never the whole picture. And never from my point of view.

And now she has it, and I can't deny that the connection. I can't shake that I'm in her head now, and she's definitely in mine, too.

Also, who am I kidding, she's pretty. More than pretty. Radiant. Her skin is like baked earth and her eyes are the color of the sky in the middle of a lightning storm, and the way she sits so easily on the hood of the car makes me believe that good things are possible.

And it makes me realize something else.

She's wild.

I don't deserve the girl in the private school uniform, or the girl who leaned against her window and almost turned me away because it was the logical thing to do.

But maybe I deserve this girl, with her dark hair twisted over her shoulder and her eyes rimmed red from being up for too long.

Her lips freeze when I first touch her and I feel something cold in my stomach, because I'm sure I've fucked up. But then her mouth moves, and the cold rushes away, leaving my stomach to clench instead, because I'm scared of pulling away. But I'm so happy. I haven't been this happy in so long.

It's almost like I don't care what will happen if we never make it to Bannock's. I just want to sit here, on the battered hood of her car, with her lips on mine and the sun bursting over the mountains, forever. Let the cars roll past, let the world go on, let Snow rot and die in a town I'm never going back to.

None of that matters if it means I can stay here for a little longer.

God, I'm so fucking selfish.

She pulls away first, and I can't help but reach a hand out, my first instinct to pull her back, but I curl my fingers and pull my hand away instead as she speaks in a raspy, breathless voice that makes my throat go tight.

"We should—we should go,"

"Yeah. We should,"

I don't move in for another kiss, and she doesn't either, but neither of us makes a move to leave the hood of the car and actually get the hell out of here. We just sit still, looking at each other.

"That was nice," she finally says.

"Yeah,"

"More than nice, actually,"

"That wasn't your first, was it?"

"God no. You?"

"No. But it was definitely the best,"

"Huh. Me too,"

"Huh,"

"We should go,"

"I know,"

"So why aren't we going?"

"Because this feels too good. Because being here, with you, feels too good,"

We both sit in silence again, the orange bleeding further into the sky. I forget which one of us moves off the hood first. But I feel the bubble around us pop at the movement, feel the remnants of it dissolve once we're both inside and Katniss is starting up the engine again.

My body is hurtling back into reality, but my mind remains pinned on that patch of grass by the side of the road, on that dented car hood, selfishly wrapped in a girl, in her lips, her body, her soul.

 ** _Katniss, 6:42 AM_**

We roll past the "Welcome to the City of Capitol" sign around the time my alarm at home would normally go off. The sky is filled with hazy, clouded colors, and I blink my aching eyes at the little boutiques and neat lawns we pass as we go further into town.

We made it. We made it through the endless highway and the broken down little towns and we're finally here.

Even though I've never been to this place in my life, it feels like coming home.

I stop at a gas station just past the city limits. While Peeta goes into the building to get us breakfast, I decide to get a full tank of gas for my eventual journey home. After the pump's in the gas tank and the numbers on the pump's screen are flying, I get back into the driver's seat, pull out my phone, and force myself to prioritize who I need to call.

First, I call into school and told them I won't be coming in today. If I do say so myself, I perform a pretty darn good fake cough for the secretary in the attendance office. She immediately sooths me with "Of course, dear" and "Feel better soon." Luckily I've earned a reputation around Coin for before a pretty stand-up kid, otherwise there's no way that act would fly.

Next, I call Mom. I put out a note for her before I left the house, just in case I didn't make it back before she woke up, and she'd already seen it, so she just reminds me to stay safe and tells me to let her know when I'm on my way home.

Then, Prim. When she picks up she's almost in tears, although she claims she wasn't too worried after seeing my note. She asks me a lot of questions, which I try my best to answer, but eventually I just give up trying and tell her I need to go, and that she's going to have to take the bus to school that day. She gives me grief for having to take the "stoner bus" in, but assures me it's fine and then hangs up so she can eat before her cereal gets too soggy.

Right after Prim ends our call, I look up and see that the price on the screen on the machine remains stationary, so I get out, remove the pump from the tank, and feed the last of the money Peeta gave me through the machine.

Just as I climb back in to the driver's seat, I see Peeta striding across the parking lot, cardboard cups and a paper bag in his hands. I lean over and unlock the door for him as he approaches, and once he gets there he balances everything between his chin and left hand as he opens the door and gets in.

"Sorry that took a while. The commuting crowd kind of held up the line," he apologizes, handing me a chocolate-glazed chocolate and a cup of coffee. I push away the cup and instead take the food.

"Don't worry about the line, I had stuff to do anyways. And no offense, but I've had enough shitty gas station coffee to last me a lifetime already," I sigh, biting into the slightly stale, sugar-caked pastry, "Oh, that was needed, though,"

"Well, good. But these donuts are kind of sad, actually. I would've waited until we got to Bannock's house if you wanted something sweet, but I thought you were hungry,"

"Can he cook?"

"Oh, yeah. He's a baker, actually. That's what our dad did, and since he was the oldest, I guess he picked up the most before…everything happened. Enough that he could open up his own bakery out of college,"

"Well," I say, trying to make my voice light, despite the fact that Peeta's eyes have misted over, like he's stuck back in another painful memory, "I guess I should save some room then, huh?"

Despite my protesting stomach, I set the donut to the side and pull out of the station and back onto the road.

The next time Peeta speaks, it's to give me directions.

 ** _Peeta, 6: 57 AM_**

Bannock lives in a nice neighborhood, the kind with a nonexistent crime rate and immaculately mowed lawns. All the houses are pretty much the same three-story layout, only with slightly varying colors and shapes. Driving past them should make me feel calm, victorious, even, but instead I feel worse than I have the whole drive, my stomach clenching with nerves at finally facing what I came here for.

Katniss finds the address I gave her and pulls up smoothly in front of it, putting the car into park. I look up at the house, taking in the white exterior and dark green trimmings.

I recognize the house from the Christmas card Bann sent me three years ago, when I was still at a reliable address. On the card, he and his new wife, Emily, were standing on the front stoop, and they looked so happy, and I missed him so much, even then, that I had made sure to shove the card in my suitcase when Snow moved us across the state.

And thank God I did, because the address in upper left hand corner of that card is what I used to get us here.

"You ready?" Katniss asks, and I turn my head away from the house to look at her.

"Yeah," I say, even though I'm not entirely sure, "I mean, we've come all this way, right?"

"Mm," she nods and turns her head forward, then reaches over to unlock the door for me, "Well, I'll wait here for a bit. But this is all on you,"

"Yeah. I guess it is,"

I open the door and get out, taking a deep breath of the clean, grass-scented air. I hear the whir of an engine and look down the way to see a yellow school bus pull up to the end of the street, several houses down, and see a few kids scamper out of their houses to go climb inside.

A normal day.

I jump at the sound of a car horn next to me, and glance into the driver's window to see Katniss staring at me expectantly, her hand glued to the center of the wheel. She nods towards the house, an unreadable look in her eyes, and mouths "go".

I nod at her and take a step towards the house, a different thought entering my mind with each step.

 _What if I got the address wrong?_

 _What if he moved?_

 _What if he doesn't even want to see me?_

Eventually I run out of anxious variations of the same few thoughts, and by that time I'm already up the front steps and standing on the wide front stoop. A brass doorbell lies next to the forest green door, and I press it. I hear a mechanic series of notes play inside, but no answer. I press it again, and this time I hear some footsteps inside.

My chest tightens as the door in front of me opens, blasting me with a wave of air-conditioning. I blink, slowly taking in details of the man answering the door.

He's dressed for work already, in a t-shirt displaying the name of his bakery and a pair of dark jeans, a key fob hanging out of his pocket. His hair is the same color as mine, but shorter and less curly. His eyes are the same dark brown I remember looking into when I was curled in a ball on the floor of the utility closet in the old bakery, both of our faces swelling with fresh bruises, his hand on my shoulder, telling me everything would be okay if I was just quiet for a few more minutes.

The only one thing that's different from what I remember is that since I've last seen him, I've grown enough that I'm the exact same height as him now.

My brother. Definitely my brother.

Looking at me with total, complete shock splashed across his face.

His mouth opens, closes, and opens again, slightly, enough to get one word out.

"Peeta?"

"Hi, Bann," I say, willing my mouth up in a smile, "Sorry I didn't call,"

I see his features contort for a second, confusion and happiness and shock fighting for dominance of his face, and then he's coming forward onto the stoop, his arms wrapped around me, his chin skimming my shoulder.

"Holy shit," he breaths, "I—I didn't know what happened to you, Peet. You dropped off the face of the earth, I thought I was never going to see you again,"

"Yeah, sorry to disappoint you," I say, trying to laugh, but Bann grunts and hugs me harder.

"Don't even talk like that," he commands, "Oh my God, oh my _God_ ,"

He hiccups roughly into the dirt-ridden fabric of my shirt, and I realize that he's crying. My undefeatable brother is crying into my shoulder.

And even though I thought I didn't have anything left in me, I feel my throat constrict and my eyes water, and I grip onto his back tightly. I'm so drained from what I got out on the side of the road that only a few more tears slip out of my eyes, and then I'm just holding my brother as he keeps going.

Finally, he pulls away from me, and we exchange a quick glance, our eyes still brimming with moisture, before he hastily wipes his eyes and looks to a point above my head.

"Who's that in the car?" he asks.

I blink my angry, wet eyes and glance over my shoulder. Katniss is still parked on the side of the street in front of the house, looking up at us. When I catch her eyes she quickly turns away, but I already know she'd been watching for a little while.

"That's my….that's Katniss," I tell him, "She drove me here,"

My brother's eyes soften and he looks between us, finally stopping on me, "Well, are you going to go tell Katniss to come inside?"

 ** _Katniss, 12:35 PM_**

When I open my eyes and the first thing I see is a porcelain rabbit sitting six inches away from my face, my first instinct is to jolt up and get away from the white, demonic little face.

There's a thick comforter covering my body and I pull it to my chest as I look around. Everything in this room is either cream or pale yellow, and I'm trying to remember exactly when someone had the opportunity to kidnap me.

Then I remember. Peeta's brother. Peeta rapping on my car window, telling me to come inside.

Me, nearly fainting when I got in the front hallway of Bannock's house because I was so exhausted. Then, a series of hands hauling me upstairs to sleep, and I couldn't even figure out whose hands they were.

Fantastic first impression.

After taking one last look around what appears to be a guest room, I roll out of the overly fluffy bed and smooth my loose hair out of my face. It's barely in a braid anymore, so I unravel the whole thing and sweep it up into a ponytail. I find my sweatshirt crumpled at the foot of the bed and pull it back on over the clothes I've been wearing all night, and then go to the door and plod down the hallway.

I should figure things out. And get away from the damn bunny while I'm at it.

I hear shushed voices coming from down the first floor hallway once I'm at the bottom of the stairs, and follow the sound until I make it a wide doorway at the end of the hall. I peek inside, hanging out of sight, as I take in the scene.

It's a kitchen, dressed up in white and blue and filled with stainless steel everything. Peeta is standing in the middle of everything, leaning his elbow against a polished marble countertop. His hair looks dark and wet, like he just took a shower. He's wearing a new set of clothes, a pair of creased jeans and a green flannel shirt, and he's standing directly across from Bannock as they talk. It strikes me how similar they look, the only real difference between them is that Bannock doesn't have Peeta's brilliant blue eyes.

As I come closer, I can vaguely hear some words being swapped between the two of them.

Bannock: "If I had known, I swear, I would have done something…"

Peeta: "Yeah, I know. Pretty sure that's why he made sure I never spoke to you and Rye all those years. So you _wouldn't_ do something."

"We'll sort this out. My old roommate, he went to Harvard Law—maybe I can call him up, see what we can do,"

"You're unbelievable,"

"I'm your brother. And that bastard deserves to rot,"

I don't really want to interrupt them, especially not at this point in the conversation, but there's a thick stretch of silence between them now and I don't know how else I'm going to be able to talk to Peeta if I don't go in there.

I knock gently on the doorframe, and both of them immediately lift their heads to look at me. Bannock gives me a smile that doesn't meet his stormy eyes, but I don't exactly expect him to be in a sunny mood while he discusses Peeta's abuse.

"Katniss! There you are. Did you sleep okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, thank you," I say, pulling my sleeves over my hands. I'm suddenly self-conscious, standing in this tidy kitchen. Should I have at least showered? Would have I been _allowed_ to shower without asking?

"I'm glad. You were pretty wiped out when you came in. Are you hungry? I could make some lunch,"

"Sure, that sounds great. Um, actually, could I maybe have breakfast first?"

"Of course,"

Bannock goes to the set of cabinets behind him, and I look over at Peeta as I take a seat at one of the high barstools in front of the kitchen island. He mouths "You okay?" and I just nod. Despite how much I wanted to get to him, we can't really talk about anything I want to talk about with his brother in the room, so I just stay quiet.

After a few minutes of shuffling around, Bannock comes back and sets a bowl, a box of cereal, and a gallon of milk in front of me, and I start opening the box as he speaks.

"Peeta was just telling me about the little adventure you had,"

"Oh?" I turn between the two of them and, from Bannock's tight voice and the red sweeping across Peeta's cheeks, I can tell that he definitely got a story that was closer to a nightmare than an adventure.

"Yes. Needless to say you went through a lot to get here. And I was just sorting out what will happen now that Peeta's finally here,"

"Right," I want so badly know what their plans are, but I'm not even sure if I deserve to know. Luckily, Peeta seems to be on the same wavelength.

"You should tell her, Bann," he pipes up, "She's the reason I'm even here,"

Bannock looks at his brother and then back to me, then leans his elbows on the counter and knots his fingers together.

"Well, alright,"

He starts out on a basic plan for what will happen next. Peeta will stay here. He'll go to school here. His home, at least as long as it makes sense, will be here. And they'll try to press charges against Snow if they can.

I nod and smile in between bites of my cereal, but I can't shake the tight feeling in my abdomen. I know this is the best for him. He's with his family again, in a place a thousand times safer than even the tamest sectors of The Districts. But a selfish part of me still aches to be a part of his life, to build on what we created during the drive up. I don't know how we'll do that when we're physically so far apart.

What if the emotional distance grows to match?

Bannock finishes catching me up, and then transitions into talking about me, which makes my face burn.

"Now, Katniss, I know you've had a long drive, and you have another one ahead of you, so you can stay here for a little while longer, to collect your thoughts and rest some more, if you'd like," he tells me, gathering my empty bowl and bringing it over to the sink, "Peeta told me you might need some cash for the road?"

"Uh—" my stomach twists when I think about how he probably knows about what had happened in Arena, "Yeah, that would be great, actually, if you don't mind,"

"Mind? You brought my brother back to me, I'll do whatever I can for you," he smiles and comes back over to his previous place in front of me, "I'll give you some money before you leave. And I think I have a map upstairs, I can draw you a route home, one that's a little faster than what you took on the way up. But until then, make yourself at home. Take a shower, eat any food you want. And if you want to wash your clothes, there's a washer and dryer down the hall. Emily's at work right now, but I'm sure she wouldn't mind if you took something of hers to wear for a little while,"

"You're—that's really nice of you. Thanks," I cringe at how flat my voice is, but I get a smile nonetheless.

"Of course," Bannock dips his head and then looks between Peeta and I, "I—I'm gonna dip into town for a little bit, make sure the bakery hasn't fallen apart while I've been gone. I'm sure you two want to talk about some things,"

He slips out of the room, and Peeta and I watch him go before we face each other. He laughs nervously, and I do the same. We were fine when we were conducting an early-morning runaway operation. Now that we're sitting in a clean suburban kitchen, we have no idea how to act.

"So," Peeta says slowly, "What the hell do we do now?"

I lean into my elbows, cupping my chin in my hands, "I think we deserve to do nothing for a little while,"

 ** _Peeta, 2: 38 PM_**

"Do you have the money?"

"Yes,"

"The map?"

"Yep,"

"Your clothes? All your stuff? Food?"

"Peeta, God, yes,"

"Alright. I'm sorry,"

Katniss leans further against her car, and crosses her arms loosely over her chest, "It's fine. Just don't worry about me," she cocks her head and squints, "No offense, but it's weird to see you so cleaned up,"

"It's weird to _feel_ so cleaned up," I admit, shrugging my shoulders so I can readjust the weight of my brother's shirt. I spent most of the morning trying to get used to how pristine Bannock's clothes are, so lightly used and cleaned by a machine you don't have to stick quarters into. My entire body feels the same way, too free of dirt and bruises and marks to be mine. At least I still have some cuts from the road to ground me.

Bannock promised to give me a normal life now, but in all honestly I'm not sure how I'm going to get used to that. What is life going to be like without having to struggle with _something_ every day?

"What are you thinking about?"

Katniss's inquiring voice brings me back to the present. I look at the girl leaning back on her car, her keys in her pocket, ready to leave and yet still stalling.

What the hell _was_ I thinking about? I probably should be focusing on the important things: How was I going to get through the rest of school? What about after that? Was I going to go to college? What kind of college would accept someone with near-failing grades and no extra-curriculars on their record? How long could I live with Bann before I really had to get my shit together?

All the big thoughts went through my mind fleetingly, but I couldn't focus on any of them. All I could focus on was this girl, with her razing tongue and her quicksilver eyes and her fleeing feet.

"Everything, I guess. What's going to happen to me now," I tell her, "And I keep thinking about kissing you,"

Her eyes lighten and she looks away, "I guess that's easier than thinking about the future, huh?"

"I guess so,"

She pushes herself away from the car and steps towards me, her hands sliding out of her pockets to grip my arms. Her tongue wets her lips and she whispers, her voice shaking slightly, "And I think doing it again would be easier than leaving right away,"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she pulls on my arms and her lips collapse onto mine. I close my eyes and tangle my arms around her. My nose burns with the overpowering smell of the orange blossom-scented body wash that clings to her skin, and my hands dig into the back of her jacket so I can hold her closer.

It's not quite as good as the last time, since I'm so preoccupied. My head is telling me clearly that she has to go home, but my heart is still confused, because the closest thing _I_ ever had to a home was those five hours in that piece of shit car, with her by my side.

She pulls her lips away and ducks her head, one hand detaching from my arm so she can reach into her pocket and remove a folded-up sheet of pale blue paper, the kind I saw sitting on Bannock's kitchen counter. She reaches for my hand and pries my fingers apart, pressing the paper into my hand.

"That kiss won't be the last, okay?" she says, folding my fingers over the paper and looking up at me, "I promise,"

"Okay," I get out, "Okay, I believe you,"

She nods and turns around, opening the driver side door. She lingers there for a moment, her feet curled around the curb, her arms leaning on the door.

"I'll see you, Peeta," she finally says, and I don't even have the chance to respond before she's climbing into the driver's seat, turning over the engine, and speeding off down the street.

I watch her go, watch that car until it's a maroon speck disappearing behind a row of gleaming sport cars at the end of the block. I keep looking at the spot where she disappears, until I see a door open a few houses down, and old man holding a hose walks out, ready to water his lawn.

I tear my eyes away from the street and unfold my fingers so I can look down at the crumpled paper in my hand. I lift it up, gingerly peel apart the folds, and immediately see a phone number and an e-mail address written in black ink.

I close my fist over it again, pressing it to my heart, because even if I'm in a place where I can have practically anything I want, I still feel like this paper in my hands is last thing I have left in the world.

 ** _Katniss, 2:42 PM-9:37 PM_**

The drive back is longer.

I don't really have a reason to drive as fast, so I slow down. I stop a lot, too, for a variety of reasons. The route I'm following now is tamer and more scenic, so I stop to admire the views. I stop to think. I stop because my mind is too cluttered with Peeta to focus on the road.

Occasionally I look over to the passenger seat, forgetting he's not sitting there anymore, but instead I'm met with the sight of empty air and the money Bannock gave me for the drive home, as well as the new map with a crisp, clean route drawn in red marker, sitting on the seat instead.

I call home at the time Prim gets back from school and again when Mom gets back from work. I apologize for not being home for dinner and dodge the question of whether or not I'll be back at school tomorrow. I tell them I love them too many times.

I get a dinner of granola bars and a slushie from a gas station and eat it in my car, my knees pulled to my chest, the radio on.

I pull off to the side of the road and sit on the hood of my car a few times. I look into the lines of swiftly moving cars still on the road, at the sparse trees that line the highway. I look at the sky line the most, and catalogue as it shifts into darker shades of blue, the moment where gray overtakes blue altogether.

I think about Peeta more than I should. I think of his tangled blond hair and the cuts on his body and his tattered, dark clothes. I wonder if he's safe. And then I think of the clean boy with the soft eyes that hugged me before I got into the car and know he is.

I cry. Just a little. Then I realize I have no reason to and I get back inside the car.

I keep driving. I follow the route.

I try hard to not think about him and fail. Because even though I know I'm not the one between us that deserves to be upset, and even though I haven't really lost him, and still barely know him…

Actually, fuck it.

I did know him. And he knew me.

I am kind of losing him. For now. Hopefully not forever, but for now, he's lost to me.

And that really fucking hurts.

It's dark when I finally pull into The Districts and make my way back to Twelfth. I pull into the driveway and mount the steps, see movement inside as Prim runs to greet me.

In the few seconds before she opens the door, I turn my head and look down the way to see Snow's house. There's a car parked out front and a shadow behind the blinds, and I think about what Peeta said, about the things that man did to him.

I try to think of something to say to curse him but the words shrivel up in my mouth, none of them strong enough, none of them able to undo anything at all.

 ** _Katniss, 1:43 PM, Three months later_**

"Katniss! Katniss, there's a car out front! I think it's him!" Prim's excited voice tumbling down the hall makes my head snap up from my summer reading report. My eyes glance at the time in the lower right corner of my laptop, but the time there doesn't make any sense. It's too early. He can't be here. Not yet. I'm not finished waiting yet.

I spin around in my seat as Prim sprints into the room, her sock-covered feet slipping on the floor as she continues shouting, "He's here, he's here!"

"Prim! Are you _sure_? I don't know if this is the right time,"

"Do you think a Lincoln parks in front of our street every day? It's him, Katniss, trust me,"

"Shit, he wasn't supposed to be here for another hour," I mumble. I stand up from my desk chair and go over to the tiny mirror propped up on our dresser, running my hands over my haggard face, but Prim grabs my arm and points to the door.

"You look fine. Go see your boyfriend,"

"Shut up," I try to snap at her, but instead I laugh. I don't know if there's a point to denying it anymore, actually. Not after everything that's happened between us.

The two weeks after I got back from Capitol were an unsettling shuffle through exams and waiting to hear from Peeta. I tried to tell myself I didn't care, that I wasn't worried, and I nearly had myself convinced when one day I checked my e-mail, and sitting there in my inbox, waiting for me, was a new message.

To:

From: peetlark97

Re: Hi. A lot of shit happened, but hi.

I almost cried as I went through his message, about how he was getting set up to go to a new school in the fall, and how he couldn't text me yet because he was still working on getting a phone. He detailed the "really fucking annoying" kids in his neighborhood, his driver's ed classes starting in a few weeks, the new job at the bakery he'd gotten hooked up with, and how he missed me. He said the last part at least five times.

From there, it was a constant stream of digital messages and updates. I told him about how things were back in the old neighborhood, and he kept me updated on both his struggles and triumphs at frosting cakes. Apparently he was a natural, because he ended up having far more of the latter.

Bannock was true to his word about putting Snow away. It wasn't even too difficult. All it took was one phone call from a wealthy outside source, and for the first time in my memory, the police came to Twelfth to actually help. The loose baggies of drugs stuffed in the crevices of Snow's house were enough to safely arrest him with a sentence that will probably take up the duration of his life. After that, transferring Peeta's custody from the newly convicted criminal to Bannock was fairly straightforward.

It was the night Peeta found out about Snow that it happened. I was lying on the couch in the living room at one in the morning, my phone nearly touching my face while texted him, asking what he thought about the arrest, if he was doing okay. Out of the blue, a message popped up on the screen that made my heart stop for a minute.

 _This is the worst possible time to tell you this, but I think I'm in love with you._

I stared at the message for a solid five minutes before I willed my fingers to move.

 _Huh. I think I'm in love with you, too._

And somehow, I was. Even if we were built on typed messages and exchanged secrets, it was enough.

A few weeks ago, when he offered to get a ride down so we could see each other for a little while, I'd actually stood up from my computer when I read the offer. We could actually be with each other again, and this time, we could actually have fun together. Like a normal couple.

The word felt weird, but I guess there wasn't another one to describe us.

Since then, I'd been an idiot, sorting out my work hours and my study sessions and whittling down the time until the day he when would actually get to come down.

And of course, now that the day's finally here, he has to show up an hour early.

Prim won't stop giggling, so I tell her to shut up and stay in our room, which only makes her laugh harder. I roll my eyes and shut the door behind me as I leave her in the room and go the hall to the front door. I stare at it for a minute and wipe my sweaty hands on the back of my shorts, and then reach for the doorknob, giving it a twist.

When I yank the door open, I immediately see Peeta standing there, one hand tucked into his pocket, the other raised in a loose fist, ready to knock. His eyes widen and then he smiles.

"Hi,"

"Hey," I breathe, leaning against the doorframe. I can barely connect the picture I have in my head to the Peeta standing in front of me. He's actually dressed in color, in sand-colored cargo shorts and a bright blue, short-sleeved button down shirt. His arms and face are free of any cuts or bruises, and his eyes are far brighter and livelier than they were then I left him.

"I can't believe you're here," I say, "Holy shit, you look like you belong at Coin,"

He groans, "That is the worst fucking thing you've ever said to me,"

"I wouldn't worry too much. You still curse too much to be a true prepster," I push myself away from the door and reach out my arms, "Do you want to hug or—"

I can't even finish my sentence before he's touching my cheeks, pulling me close so he can kiss me. My eyes flutter closed and I wrap my arms around his neck. My tongue jumps at the taste of mint on his lips, but the rest of my body melts into him like this is the most natural thing in the world, even though this is only the third time we've actually done this.

He pulls away and presses his lips to my forehead before smiling, "I went with 'or'. But a hug sounds good, too,"

"Unbelievable," I groan, squeezing my arms tighter around his neck as he wraps his arms around me and pats my back, "You're early, you know,"

"What? No, we agreed I'd come at two,"

"It was _three_ , we said that ten times," I groan, "God, you're lucky I like you so much,"

"Yeah, I guess I am," he untangles his arms enough to just grip my elbows, pulling himself away from me, "So, what do you want to do today?"

"Anything," I shrug, "I don't care,"

"Well…" he looks towards the curb and I follow his gaze to the gleaming car parked on the curb, and his brother sitting in the driver's seat, fiddling with a phone, "No offense, but this place has a lot of bad mojo, so I don't really want to hang around. And I don't know how badly you'll want to get carted around town with a chaperone,"

I groan, "Oh, God, please no. You know I love your brother, but…no,"

"Thought so," he leans in and kisses me below my ear, "Go grab your keys,"

"Hm, why?"

He pulls away and shrugs, a small smile floating over his lips, "I think we should run away somewhere,"


End file.
